Verifying overseas companies — practical guides

A reference guide to what company information is, where it comes from, what's public and what isn't, and how it differs from one country to the next. The general primer behind everything else in the knowledge base.

What a business credit report contains, when you need one, where the data comes from, and how international company credit checks differ from domestic ones. A reference for buyers, sellers and finance teams.

What Gold Supplier, Verified Supplier and Trade Assurance actually mean, the free checks on the registered company behind a listing, and the red flags that should stop an order.

What buyers can check on the SAMR registry and NECIPS portal, how to read a Chinese business licence, and where the public record can't reach.

Reading a CIN, checking MCA21, cross-referencing GST, director DINs, and the IBBI insolvency record. The interpretation problems that registry access alone doesn't solve.

The UAE has seven mainland regulators, 40+ free zones, and two offshore registries. Knowing which one issued the licence is the first job of any verification.

MERSIS, the Türkiye Ticaret Sicil Gazetesi, and the legal forms. Why inflation and currency volatility make a fresh financial assessment essential.

Reading a CRO record, the abridged-accounts regime, and what Section 357 (formerly Section 17) really means when an Irish subsidiary files no accounts of its own.

One SIREN per company, one SIRET per location, and a VAT number built from the same root. How the French identifiers decode and where to check them free.

The eight-digit Handelsregister identity, its companions the RSIN and BTW numbers, and what the free KvK search shows versus the paid extract.

Why people still say CIF, what the letter prefix reveals about the entity type, and how to verify a Spanish company against the registers.

Italy's eleven-digit identity, its relationship to the codice fiscale, and how a free VIES check both validates the number and names its owner.

India's 21-character CIN read like a sentence: listing status, industry, state, year and type. Plus the GSTIN, and the free MCA and GST portal checks.

Two constantly confused numbers: which entities hold which, how a company's ABN embeds its ACN, and the one-minute free checks on ABN Lookup and ASIC.

Singapore's one-number-for-everything identity: how the formats decode, and what BizFile shows free versus in the paid business profile.

The Commercial Registration number, what the Ministry of Commerce record shows, and the Arabic-name pitfalls when matching documents.

What the official company register is called in the USA, Germany, France, China and 20+ other major economies — who runs it, how it's structured, and what it gives you for free.

The official company registry, tax authority, courts, financial regulator and gazette for every country — with direct links and a 1–5 rating of how accessible each source is.

China's 18-character company identifier carries more information than buyers usually realise. How to read each block, validate the check digit, and spot a fabrication.

HRB vs HRA, the Unternehmensregister, the Transparenzregister, and reading a Handelsregister number. What German limited companies have to file, and what they don't.

The Receita Federal CNPJ lookup, the situação cadastral status terms, and the state-level Junta Comercial filings that sit alongside the federal record.

Three small islands, three separate registries. What the JFSC, Guernsey Registry and the Alderney Company Registry each publish, and what verification on the islands actually requires.

The four variants of invoice fraud, why a change of bank details is the moment of maximum risk, and the five verification habits that stop a routine payment going to the wrong account.

Eight checks that catch most frauds before you do business: registry record, status, detail-matching, the people, history claims, contact tracing, bank-account matching and filings.

Owners, directors and beneficial owners are different questions. Where ownership is public and where it isn't, how to check step by step, and what to do when the trail goes through layers.

The ultimate beneficial owner in plain language: the 25% rule and its blind spots, how UBO registers differ around the world, and what a KYB check actually involves.

The five checks of a complete vetting, step by step: identity and registration, risk assessment, financial health, KYB screening, and the bank-detail control that stops invoice fraud.

What a background check on a company includes, which parts are free from official registers, how to confirm a company is still trading, and where investigation has to take over.

A tiered framework (light-touch, standard, and enhanced) for matching the level of diligence to the level of supplier risk. What to keep on file, and how to evidence it.

Distributors carry your brand, need credit terms, and sit on your customer data. The five questions a channel-partner check has to answer, and where supplier checks don't reach.

Ten specific warning signs that recur in international counterparty work, each explained. From recently-incorporated entities asking for large orders, to mismatched payment instructions and manufactured urgency.